Monday, July 25, 2011

Castle Tioram

This may not be interesting to anyone else but me and my family, I hope, but I have really enjoyed looking into a bit of my family history. I am half German and half Scottish so I feel so blessed to be living in Germany and have the opportunity to travel to Scotland.

I mentioned earlier that I was in search of finding any ties to my maiden name while in Scotland. Traveling to Scotland I knew that I was part of Clan MacDonald of clanranald and that they had a castle near Moidart, Castle Tioram.

After talking with Nigel, our tour guide, we were able to set up an afternoon to search for our castle. I say our castle because my friends could not have been better cheerleaders as they all voted to make time for this task. It was also fun to hear, "Sara, let's find your castle."

Castle Tioram now lies in ruins on an inlet in Loch Moidart, just south of Mallaig. It is only accessible during low tide and luckily we arrived at the right time and walked right up to it. The castle was left by clan chief Allan of Clanranald when he left to go fight for the Jacobites and ordered for it to be burnt down so not to fall into enemy hands. When we arrived at the castle we talked with a family that was having a picnic on the beach with their children. They said that they were also from Clanranald and that it is now owned by a man who is trying to get Scotland to conserve the ruin. Unfortunately, Scotland has turned him down twice. This made me even more grateful to be able to see it while there is still something to see.

Our family castle

A look inside.

Exploring.

Getting up the courage to start climbing.

Phil was brave enough to climb all the way to the top.

Looking into the courtyard. Our guide told us that this is where merchants would gather in the mornings.

Bedrooms with fireplaces.

The oven in the kitchen.

The dining room with large fireplace.

After an hour of taking pictures and looking around it was time to get back in the car.

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About Us

We were loving life in Charlotte, NC when we were approached with the opportunity to move to Germany for work. We are now starting our adventure in Erlangen, Germany. We can not wait to explore Germany, learn the language and travel throughout Europe. We are viewing this adventure as an amazing gift and want to share it with our friends and family.

A shout out to Charlotte

When you leave home for an extended period of time you begin to think about all the things that you miss and appreciate back home. Phil and I are so blessed to have loving and supportive friends and family. It makes such a difference to receive emails and facebook messages from loved ones while we are so far from home. We wanted to remind our friends in Charlotte in particular of how much we appreciate and love them.

You all do such a great job celebrating each others accomplishments and supporting one another when needed. We are so blessed to have you all in our lives and look forward to see you all either here in Germany or back home when we visit. Thank you for the impact you have had on us. We look forward to future trips and adventures with you guys.